Sometimes I visit Trekcore.com to search a screenplay for some minutiae. While searching a copy of the First Contact screenplay I stumbled upon what is an early draft of the movie. With some fascinating concepts with regard to interpreting the Enterprise-E. Some of it dropped for the final draft that would become the film.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Star Trek First Contact Screenplay, Draft One

9 THE USS ENTERPRISE NCC 1701-E 9

Quote:

Originally Posted by Star Trek First Contact Screenplay, Draft One

SOARS into view and moves to protect the beleaguered starship. The Enterprise is Starfleet's newest and most powerful vessel. An elegant and majestic ship. But unlike the last Enterprise, Starfleet has opted for a more muscular vessel and the hull is studded with weapons and other defensive armory. We get the feeling this Enterprise is ready for anything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Star Trek First Contact Screenplay, Draft One

11 EXT. SPACE - THE ENTERPRISE & BORG SHIP 11

The Endeavor moves off as the Borg FIRE at the Enterprise and BLASTS the saucer section. This should also produce an unusual effect -- instead of the traditional "bubble" shielding, the new armor of this Enterprise ABSORBS the blast and dissipates the energy across the hull. The ship is undamaged.

As RAPID PHASER SHOTS leap out from half a dozen points along the ship's port side. (NOTE: The phasers also look different, more along the lines of a gatling gun). The Borg Cube EXPLODES. The Enterprise flies through the debris.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Star Trek First Contact Screenplay, Draft One

14 INT. BRIDGE 14

Including MAIN VIEWSCREEN, which has a view of the
chaotic battle surrounding them. Another Borg vessel
looms into view.

So in spirit my 8 beam tac odyssey is what the E could of been...
Nice find.

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So in spirit my 8 beam tac odyssey is what the E could of been...
Nice find.

Sounds more like a single cannon setup with CRF than beams. "As RAPID PHASER SHOTS leap out from half a dozen points along the ship's port side. (NOTE: The phasers also look different, more along the lines of a gatling gun)."

No, not "enter the regent" -- lower the cannon skills! All cruisers are capable of mounting single cannons, since BEFORE any cruiser had a lt CDR boff slot.

The cannon skills are mutually exclusive of cruisers, which is sad. The 180 degree arc with worse damage falloff at range but slightly higher dps at close range makes them a versatile tradeoff from beam arrays, but you cant ever use them because the boff skills are all screwed up for cruisers.

SOARS into view and moves to protect the beleaguered starship. The Enterprise is Starfleet's newest and most powerful vessel. An elegant and majestic ship. But unlike the last Enterprise, Starfleet has opted for a more muscular vessel and the hull is studded with weapons and other defensive armory. We get the feeling this Enterprise is ready for anything.

Elegant and majestic and muscular looking?
I don't associate these words with the look of the sovereign, i would rather decribe it as rediculusly streched and skinny. I'm sorry but i just hate the look which has been (re)introduced with this ship. I find the work of it's designer uncreative and just cheap.

Instead of introducing a complete new ship and throwing it into a hectic and unclear situation, they should have modernized the Galaxy Class a instead. Maybe giving it a more sturdy and shorter looking neck and so fusing Saucer and Engineering hull much more would have been enough.
But creating a modernized (and completely unsympathic looking btw.) racing variant of a excelsior Class is just cheap. The Galaxy Class could have been easily overhauled for Battle if needed. Heck the 1701 was refittet to become a almost completely different ship in ST:1.
A GOOD ship designer easily could have created a up to date Galaxy Class variant. But sadly, they went the lazy/easy (and imprudent) way. They could have even slapped some more torpedo launcers on the new design, so all the producers have a reason to be happy.

They just shouldn't have let the Ent -D die in ST:7, they easily could have made a complete overhaul of the Galaxy Class Enterprise -D for the new movie. There was no reason to let this ship die after 7 years TNG, it deserved better IMO.
Heck even Kirks ship death had a good reason, but the death of the Ent -D was just lazy and bad writing, because the producers wanted to have a new toy for their movies at any cost and they couldn't even hide it very clever.
I think ST:8 would have been much more emotional (and creepy) if we could have seen the Ent - D becoming "borgified" more and more.
Instead we see corridors of a ship borgified, we didn't even know (or especially care) in the first place, so there wasn't any special tension or bond to the audience. Additionally the visual contrast of the dark already assimilated parts of the ship to the much more brighter and friendlier Enterprise - D corridors, would have been much more extreme.
At some point picard starts the self destruct, which was obviously intended to raise some emotions from the audience, but at least for me it was just completely irrelevant, heck i couldn't even see that ship for more than a minute at a whole, why should i care about it?

On the other hand, seeing the Enterprise - D doing a flyby on the Defiant (at the beginning) and another flyby on the phoenix (late in the movie) would have been looked absolutely glorious. They could have had the chance to make the gorgeous Galaxy Class design shine and show (it's new) teeth after it's refit, but we will never have the chance to see that...

I also think they introduced too many new things like the new uniforms and other ships in ST:8. Everything looked too different to TNG in my opinion.

Another thing, i would have found it better if the Battle against the Cube would have run a bit different.
I think the Borg time ship should have been started in the middle of the battle. The Enterprise would have followed it then and gone to the past. At the end of the movie the Enterprise would have returned to the battle (of which we don't know how it will end) and continued to fight the Borg Cube. This time they would have shot that dam thing into pieces!
I always found it very anticlimactic to have the big battle just in the beginning of the movie, the big B A N G of the borg cubes destruction should have been at the end IMHO.